The Post’s Steve Serby chatted with 77-year-old Hammerin’ Hank, now a spokesman for Topps, whose 755 career homers have been topped by only tainted Barry Bonds.

Q: Do you think Alex Rodriguez is a threat to break the all-time home run record?

A: I think he is. If he puts things where it’s supposed to be at. I think Rodriguez has got too many irons in the fire right now. I think his head’s not level enough to the point where he can have the kind of year that it takes in order to go past all of the records in the book.

Q: In what way?

A: I read in the papers, he said he had a great winter, for the first time. He should have a great winter all the time. When you’re playing baseball, you have to think about playing baseball. It’s a tough game. It’s tough, because you play so many games. I remember there were three years I didn’t miss one game — I played every exhibition game in spring training, and every game during the season. And it didn’t bother me.

Q: You’re talking about his focus?

A: If his focus would be the same as Jeter, then I think that he can do some great — he’s already done some great things — he can do some even greater things. I think sometimes it wavers. . . . It (doesn’t) stay on the same level.

Q: Players you enjoy watching today?

A: Jeter, I like watching. I think he knows what baseball’s all about. I think he appreciates the game. Jeter’s got a lot of skills as a baseball player and yet . . . his skills are not magnified to the point that you said he’s even better than somebody else. But he got the most out of everything that he had.

Q: Can you envision him playing the outfield?

A: I can envision him playing left field.

Q: Joe Torre was a former teammate. . . . Did you envision him as a manager one day?

A: Never did, no. He wasn’t serious enough. He was a good-looking guy, and he was looking at the . . . females.

Q: So he was a ladies’ man when he played?

A: Exactly right (laughs).

Q: Why aren’t there more African-American baseball players?

A: I wish somebody would tell me. I’ve tried to get it from the Commissioner’s Office. I’ve tried to get it from everybody. I do not know. It is a troubling situation. I don’t know how we’re gonna solve the problem, because it is a problem. It’s a damn big problem. You can look at it a lot of ways. When we have an economic struggle in this country, who suffers the most? Black and poor. It’s a very expensive game. I made it in spite of . . . only because there was nothing else to do in Mobile, Alabama.

Q: You were 14 the first time you saw Jackie Robinson play in Mobile.

A: Some were booing and some were cheering. The seating was somewhat segregated. They had bleachers for blacks and bleachers for whites.

Q: When was the first time you met him?

A: We played an exhibition game in Memphis, I believe.

Q: Tell me what you remember about that meeting.

A: The thing I remember most about it was the fact that, I don’t know how it happened, but I shook his hand and I stood in the corner for a long time because he stayed there playing cards with Campy (Roy Campanella) and all the rest of them.

Q: In the clubhouse?

A: It was a hotel we were staying in. One of the rooms.

Q: Why did you just stand there?

A: I guess just starstruck, really.

Q: Later on, he gave you some advice after a game.

A: He just told me whatever I did when I was playing baseball, to take the game very serious. Don’t think that just because you have one day where you go 0-for-4 or 3-for-4, whatever it is, the next day is something a little different.

Q: Did you ever pick his brain about what he had to endure?

A: No, I never did, because I kinda sensed what he was going through. Later on, I got a chance to meet Rachel, his wife, she was very helpful in some of the things she told me, which I knew. Because for many years, having to talk with Andrew Young and some of the other Civil Rights leaders, I kinda knew a little bit about what all of this entailed. And I knew that more than anything, that the women in those days were more important than the men in some ways because they had to make things easier for you.

Q: If he were alive during your home run chase, what do you think he would have been telling you?

A: I think he would have made things a lot easier. I could have really listened to him with some of the things that I was going through. Because some of the same things I was going through, he went through before. Like isolation . . . like living in hotels by yourself . . . your teammates would live in one hotel, you live someplace else.

Q: Did you think about him during that time?

A: I did. I thought about him a lot.

Q: If you were Jackie Robinson, do you think you could have endured what he did?

A: I don’t know. It would have been hard. It would have been very, very hard. But yet, I got a lot of my inner thoughts and strength from my parents. So I might have done it. But it would have been a lot tougher for me. Because Jackie was more than just a baseball player. He was an educated man. He knew how to deal with the press. I don’t know, at my age, would I have been able to do that? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Q: Your mother was a big influence on you growing up.

A: She was very strict. She didn’t believe in repeating it twice. And if she couldn’t do it, then she’d turn it over to my father. Every now and then, the Ku Klux Klan would decide that they were gonna march, so your mother would holler across the field, “Come on in the house,” and then we’d get under the bed. Because they would come along, and burn crosses in your yard, just for the sake of doing it.

Q: When you think back to the way things were back then, does it make you sad? Does it make you angry?

A: A little bit of both. Because I always feel like you shouldn’t criticize another person until you walk a mile in his shoes.

Q: You ever think someone like [Barack] Obama would be president?

A: (Laughs) No way you’d think that would ever happen.

Q: You kept the racist letters you received during your chase of Babe Ruth.

A: Some people said, “Why would you keep ‘em?” I kept ‘em for a reason, because that was not too long ago, really, with all of this happening. And sometimes, you need to remind your children.

Q: Ebbets Field?

A: The thing about Ebbets Field I remember is that when they opened the gates up, there were 1,500 kids coming in. And you didn’t have to go outside to open the gates up to let the adults in, those kids were keeping up enough noise, so you thought it was 50,000 people out there. And then the other thing was, that you walk right out of the dugout and people could look at you, they could see the face of a baseball player!

Q: Your Milwaukee Braves beat the Yankees in 7 in 1957 and then blew a three-games-to-one lead in the ’58 World Series.

A: Most of the players on our ballclub felt like we were gonna win, it’s just a matter of time. Then I started noticing the Yankees from then on. A lot of people said they were lucky. But they weren’t lucky. They just were determined, and they just would never give up.

Q: Was that a scary sight seeing Mickey Mantle up at the plate?

A: It didn’t bother me, I was too far away (laughs). It mighta bothered the pitcher.

Q: Was there an aura about the Yankees?

A: The Yankees remind you so much of the Boston Celtics. You like ‘em or you hate ‘em, it doesn’t make any difference. But they know how to win. And I tell a lot of people, they said, “Well, they had Mickey Mantle and they had Yogi Berra and they had Joe DiMaggio,” yes they did. But if you notice down through the years, all through the years — they never beat themselves. You get ‘em into extra innings and boy, I tell ya, nine times out of 10 they would find a way to beat you.

Q: Whitey Ford?

A: Whitey and I understood each other pretty well.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, he got me out, and I got some hits off of him (laughs).

Q: One guy you hated facing?

A: Curt Simmons. He threw a lot of junk.

Q: Who was tougher, Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale?

A: I hit more home runs off Drysdale than anybody. And I tell you what really happened. The reason. The first two years that I faced Drysdale, he’s very intimidating — so big, and he threw sidearm, he threw hard, very hard, and he’s very mean. I had gone 0-for-6 or 7 or 8, and Fred Haney, who was managing the ballclub, called me in the office one day, he said, “Hank, I want to bench you, because Drysdale is pitching. You can’t hit Drysdale.” And I said, “Just give me one chance.” And that day I went out there, I got three hits and from then on I had very good luck against Drysdale.

Q: You were on the cover of Sports Illustrated just three times. Why were you underappreciated?

A: I don’t know . . . maybe playing in Milwaukee was one . . . and maybe the era in which I played, I was up against people like Mantle and Mays in New York City. And I don’t think appreciation was the thing, because I think among my own peers, I played in as many All-Star games as they did ’cause I was voted in the game by them. . . . It didn’t bother me.

Q: How did your friendship with Bud Selig begin?

A: My first year in Milwaukee, I knew Bud’s father. I knew his whole family. Bud was in the automobile business, and Bud used to give all the players cars when they used to play there. And I got to know Bud very well, and Bud was on the Packers’ Board, and he and I used to go out to football games together — the Packers used to play two games (per season) in Milwaukee.

Q: What was Vince Lombardi like?

A: He was somebody that you had to admire. I remember one game, I was on the sideline, they were playing against Detroit. And there was a linebacker, I don’t know who he was, but he was very mean, and it seemed like all the Packers, instead of concentrating trying to win the game, they were going after him, trying to do something to him. And Vince, during the half, said: “I don’t need to tell you who I’m talking about,” — he didn’t say it like that — “If we lose this game, I want four or five of you guys, and I don’t need to tell you who they are, put your shoulder pads in the middle of the floor and get to walkin’ ’cause you’re not gonna be with Green Bay anymore.”

Q: You’ve seen “Lombardi” on Broadway?

A: It’s a great play. I’ve seen it twice.

Q: The day JFK was assassnated?

A: I remember that I was in my car when I found out that he got assassinated in Dallas. It was really a sad moment for the whole world. Because I just think that he had unfinished business. I thought he was a great president. I think that he would have been even better if he had gotten into his second term.

Q: Here is a quote from (Atlanta columnist) Terence Moore: “No matter what Barry Bonds does, Hank Aaron will be looked at as the home run king.”

A: (Laughs) Text him back and say, “Thank you.” I don’t get into the debate over who . . .

Q: Does it make you feel good inside that most of America will consider you the home run king?

A: Yeah, it makes me feel good. But I can’t sit here and take anything away from Barry because, here again, he’s got a court case coming up and he’s got all these things against him, and I just don’t think it’s fair for me to predict how these things are gonna work out. I’ve said this many times: He was a helluva baseball player in spite of anything else that he did.

Q: Do you think he belongs in the Hall of Fame?

A: Well . . . let’s just wait and see.

Q: Pete Rose in the Hall?

A: I think he’s paid his dues. He’s suffered a lot. I don’t know how many more years — 10 years, 15, 20 years, 30 years — I’d like to see him enjoy those 30 years of being in the Hall of Fame.

Q: You were on the cover of the Wheaties box in 2002 . . . what was that like?

A: It was great! My kids loved it. They collected a lot of Wheaties boxes (laughs).

Q: You were honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

A: That was probably one of the greatest moments that I’ve ever had in life.

Q: Your wife Billye?

A: I was floundering around in my own little way, and I think she kinda settled me down a little bit. If I had not met her, I don’t think that I would be involved with my (Chasing The Dream) Foundation. So I think meeting her gave me a sense of added responsibility.

Q: Sandy Koufax?

A: He was even a better person than he was a pitcher.

Q: Was he the toughest left-hander?

A: He wasn’t tough. But the next day you look in the paper, you’re 0-for-4. Straight overhand, everything . . . but he knew how to pitch.

Q: When you played, did you have an offseason job?

A: Oh, yes, I did. I used to work with Miller Brewery Co. And I also used to work with a company out in Milwaukee where we used to go solicit freight.

Q: What did that job pay?

A: I don’t know, I guess $200 a month, $300 or something like that.

Q: The most you made in one season?

A: A little over $200,000.

Q: Three dinner guests?

A: President Clinton; Dr. King; Jackie Robinson.

Q: When did you start collecting Topps baseball cards?

A: I guess like every kid, when I first started playing baseball, but I didn’t collect them for myself, I collected to give them to my kids. They had the good bubble gum in ‘em (laughs).

Q: Do you still have your collection?

A: No I don’t (laughs). I wish I did.

Q: Did my mother throw yours out, too?

A: I think mine were destroyed in my separation from my first wife (laughs).

Q: Topps’ 60th anniversary?

A: You’d go in the clubhouse and you see the Topps gum, and you just pick up a pack and you’d chew it. And I was very glad that I was doing this rather than chewing tobacco. ‘Cause a lot of players in my time were chewing tobacco. And what they were doing, they were taking their gum, putting it around the tobacco. And I never got in that habit.

Q: What would you want the American public to say about you?

A: I just want them to say that I was a person that was concerned with the well-being of others rather than talk about myself. I think I was extremely lucky and was God-gifted in some ways to play the game of baseball. I took the game very serious. When I went on the playing field, I gave it everything, 99 percent of what I had. I did that all the time, all of the time. I don’t think that any manager that I played for, ever said that I was late getting to the ballpark, late getting on the bus, doing any of those things. So I want people just to remember me as being someone that gave everything I had.